Candy Bar Lab

I previously reviewed the Pop Rocks Mega Bar and concluded that it was the worst candy bar I had ever had, partly because the chocolate was crap. Well, some anonymous person contacted me with a profanity laced tirade about that review. They must have been a huge fan of the Pop Rocks Mega Bar because they said my review was crap and my blog sucked. Who knew people would get so upset about a candy blog? Anyway, I figured I’d give the bar a second chance because the first one I tried was admittedly not very fresh and maybe with better, fresher chocolate, the product would be decent. I had serious doubts, but I tried to keep an open mind.

Structure
A 6-segment, molded bar of milk chocolate with Pop Rocks mixed throughout.

Texture
The consistency of the chocolate is okay, but I don’t really like how thick the bar is though. It makes it rather hard to bite through. It would be better if this bar were about half as thick as it currently is. But the chocolate is of course, not the interesting part of this candy bar. The Pop Rocks are. At first, they feel just like regular crisp rice pieces. After a couple of seconds though, their carbonated properties become noticeable. Maybe others enjoy the fizzy, popping sensation, but it’s too much for me. If it only lasted a few seconds, I’d be okay with it. Instead, the popping lasts for a while though and moves down your throat as you swallow. It’s just a really odd sensation.

Taste
The Pop Rocks are completely flavorless, so the Mega Bar tastes like a plain milk chocolate bar.

Verdict
The second time tasting the Pop Rocks Mega Bar was a little better than the first, but only because I knew what to expect this time. That didn’t really help me like it any better though. I think the biggest problem is that the Pop Rocks themselves don’t have any flavor. I actually like strawberry flavored Pop Rocks and think those might work well with chocolate. I came across a review of the Chuao Firecracker Chocolate Bar, which also uses popping candy, but has better chocolate and some other flavors. I’m interested to try Chuao’s version out and see if popping candy belongs with chocolate after all.

I’ve had traditional Turkish Delight before and I liked it’s soft consistency and light flavor. So, when I saw Fry’s Turkish Delight, I imagined the candy I had tried covered in chocolate and that seemed like a good thing. It turns out that Fry’s version is very different from what I had imagined.

Structure
Each bar is a thin, rectangle slab of flavored jelly enrobed in milk chocolate.

Texture
Unlike some other chocolate covered jelly products, with Fry’s Turkish Delight, the chocolate shell doesn’t crumble apart. Instead, it sticks to the tightly to the product. The jelly center disintegrates quickly and is not chewy nor sticks to your teeth. Though I’m not usually a fan of jelly filled confections, I liked the overall consistency of this candy bar.

Flavor
There’s something immediately odd about the taste. I couldn’t find anything on the packaging that said what flavor the jelly was, but since it appeared to be dark red/purple, I was expecting raspberry or some other fruit to be the main flavor. That guess was way off. Instead, it tasted like clove and mint mixed with grape jelly. It really had me confused at first, so I Googled it. I couldn’t find an official answer, but over at ChocaBlog, they mention it’s flavored with the essence of rose. Not sure what that’s supposed to taste like, but sounds like a reasonable answer from what I experienced. Anyway, overall, Fry’s Turkish Delight jelly tastes pretty weird. It’s palatable with the chocolate coating, but I didn’t really love it.

Verdict
I’m just not a big fan. It’s unique though and I could see some people being enthusiasts. Maybe if I had grown up with these, I would have learned to love them.

In the US, the only Cadbury candy bars I ever see are the solid, molded variety with nuts and dried fruits mixed in. These bars are actually produced by Hershey’s under a license agreement. In the rest of the world though, there’s a big variety of Cadbury enrobed products like the Cadbury Boost. I suppose the Hershey’s licensing agreement might prohibit Cadbury from exporting these candy bars to the US.

Structure
The inner core is a chocolate ganache-like filling, where the bottom half has small, round bits of biscuits (cookies) mixed in. This is surrounded by a thin layer of caramel. The whole bar is enrobed in milk chocolate.

Texture
The chocolate filling isn’t as soft as I was expecting or would have liked. It’s slightly softer than the pure chocolate coating, but not much. The biscuit pieces are perfectly crunchy, but there aren’t enough of them. I would have liked the whole center, not just the bottom half, to include biscuits pieces. The way the caramel is layered so thin, it’s not noticeable at first. But since it’s so chewy, it lasts longer than the other components, so you end up with some caramel in your mouth after everything else is gone.

Taste
The milk chocolate, both the coating and the filling, taste good. The caramel is slightly salty, which complements the overall sweetness of the product.

Verdict
The Cadbury Boost is a reconstructed Twix bar, though it’s not quite as good. Twix has a higher proportion of caramel and it’s solid cookie bar provides more crunch than Boost’s small, round bits of cookie. That said, it’s still pretty darn good and Cadbury chocolate is tasty.